A PAEDOPHILE who sexually assaulted one girl in a church and another near a play park has been locked up.

Judge Graham Cottle branded Kevin Davis a "complete menace" as he jailed him for four and a half years.

The 49-year-old indecently touched a six-year-old girl in a church before assaulting her at her home the next day, Plymouth Crown Court heard.

He spent 18 months in prison for related offences – but assaulted a five-year-old girl within weeks of his release.

Davis touched the stranger on steps near a play park in the city before he was caught by neighbours, a court heard.

Judge Cottle said he would have liked to have locked Davis up indefinitely until he was treated and assessed as no longer a risk.

But he said a recent change in the law made that impossible.

"He is a complete menace," the judge added. "He has been for years and he knows it too."

Davis, who has a record of sex crimes going back more than 20 years, was jailed for a total of four and a half years for three offences. He was also given an extended licence of six years, meaning he will be supervised upon release and any further offence will return him to jail until the end of that period.

Davis, whose address is recorded as Exeter Prison, admitted sexual assault of a girl aged under 13 on April 13 last year.

He also admitted the assault put him in breach of a Sexual Offences Prevention Order.

Davis also admitted sexual assault of another girl aged under 13 on May 15, 2010.

The court heard the 2010 offence had been ordered to lie on file but was brought back to court after the new assault.

Prosecutor David Gittins said Davis had befriended the parents of the first victim through their church.

He said he used to turn up at their home and was once briefly left alone with the girl. Mr Gittins said she later told her mother she had been indecently assaulted there and also touched the previous day in church.

The court heard Davis was given a three-year prison sentence for two breaches of his Sexual Offences Prevention Order in November 2010. He had befriended other parents at the church to get to their children.

Mr Gittins said Davis sat next to the second girl on steps near a play park in Plymouth and touched her indecently at about 4.45pm in April last year.

A family friend spotted him moments later and he was detained by neighbours.

Deni Matthews, for Davis, said he had accepted his offences and had in the past tried to tackle his offending. He had gone 10 years without being convicted up to 2002.

The father of the second victim said Davis should have been jailed for longer.

Indefinite sentences were scrapped in December last year after being decreed unlawful.

"I am really angry," the dad told The Herald. "He has done this over and over again."